AS IF 

A PHILOSOPHICAL 
PHANTASY 



AS IF 



A PHILOSOPHICAL PHANTASY 



By CORA LENORE ^ILLIAMS, M. S. 

AUTHOR OF 

"involution"and OTHER ESSAYS 

PRINCIPAL OF THE A-TO-ZED SCHOOL 
BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA 




PAUL ELDER AND COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS • SAN FRANCISCO 






Copyright, 1914 

By Paul Elder & Company 

San Francisco 



JUL 22 1914 

©CI.A374891 



(9 



TO MY SISTER IEVA 



FOREWORD 

TTT'HEN a child I had a treasure-box 
W containing bits of colored glass and 
crystal, things without value to others, but 
precious to me, for they were mine in the 
deepest sense — I had recognized their worth 
and claimed them from the oblivion other- 
wise their doom. This, the treasure-box of 
my later years, is the child of that earlier 
one. I had hoped to arrange these fragments 
of thought into some mosaic; I had even 
aspired to a design — some grand conception 
— for a window in the Temple of Truth, 
through which others might see my vision 
and dream my dreams. But now as in those 
by-gone days, I offer only a kaleidoscope to 
those who would share my confidence. If 
you shut one eye tight and look hard with the 
other, you will see — I beg your pardon, I was 
thinking of the other box. 

C. L. W. 



BOOK I 

THE LETTERS OF DIOCLES 



BOOK I 

MY name is Clarence Barston. I 
am a wireless operator, and an 
experimenter with aeroplanes. 
What more natural, therefore, 
than my use of an aeroplane for a wireless 
station? It had long since occurred to me 
that should the dwellers of another planet be 
endeavoring to communicate with us, the elec- 
tric waves transmitting their message would 
encounter so many earth currents, at even 
our highest stations, as to become entirely 
vitiated. If, then, we would have intercourse 
with the universe at large, we must overcome 
this difficulty. To this end I installed a wire- 
less receiver on a small biplane and soared 
to my highest altitude. Imagine my surprise 
when the instrument recorded the following 
outgoing message from our own sphere, — to 
what celestial one, I know not: 

To My Wife Agnesi, 

In the world that was mine. 
Dear Agnesi : 

Since leaving you I am experi- 
encing such things as no man Has ever to my 
knowledge recorded. The course of my orbit 
has swung me into a singular space con- 
formation. I say singular because of the pe- 
culiar effect that it has upon the thought of 

3 



AS-IF 

its denizens. At first I was inclined to ascribe 
their want of rationality to a fallacious logic 
and to rest content with that, but recollecting 
that thought, like all other activity, is a re- 
sponse of the organism to its environment, 
I decided to investigate further. 

As near as I am able to make out with 
the instruments at my command, the space 
here prevailing is of three dimensions. So 
far the people are correct in their view of it, 
but there is a fourth dimension in the process 
of evolving, and already grown quite strong 
in certain quarters, of which they have no 
conception. They suffer, however, although 
unconsciously so, from their inability to rec- 
ognize this as a given datum of existence. 
As may readily be imagined, it is impossible 
to see with any clearness through this shift- 
ing medium. There is a constant mental 
aberration in consequence of the momentary 
change of curvature. No sooner has a man 
laid out a base line for his reasoning than it 
becomes displaced as by an earthquake. In 
system after system of triangulation have 
these people vainly sought some element of 
permanency. Try as they may, — and there 
are many among them who devote their whole 
lives to the effort, — it is impossible for them 
to establish an absolute. Their status is that 
of shadows on a fluttering curtain where 



• 



[THE LETTEES "I 
OF DIOCLES J 

change is the only law of being. What marvel 
that there arise false prophets who cry that 
no knowledge is possible! Not being able to 
meet the conditions of life intellectually, there 
is a growing tendency on the part of the 
thinkers to fall back npon intuition as leading 
to greater insight than reason. With their 
leaders gone blind, the multitudes grope in 
the darkness. 

I have been through all sorts of configur- 
ations, yet never before have I chanced upon 
a people so fundamentally at odds with their 
environment. In fact, these poor Mortals — 
so they call themselves (why, you will see 
later) — have not even the necessary sense 
organs for getting themselves properly 
placed in this new space which is upon them. 
I happened to discover this accidentally, for 
it would never have occurred to me to ques- 
tion the matter. Would you believe it! — 
they are equipped with but three semilunar 
canals! No wonder they are unable to get 
their bearings. How they would stagger 
about in our space of ten dimensions ! This 
goes to show how impossible it is for a being 
to anticipate a form of life above his own, 
and yet we are forever speaking of the higher 
life as if we knew all about it. 

A most startling thought has just come to 
me: May it not be that we of the world of 



AS-IF 

ten dimensions are similarly limited in our 
perceptions? Perhaps there is an eleventh 
dimension, if we were ready to receive it ! We 
have it in mathematics, as you know. And 
why stop there! The spatial series may be 
infinite and our evolution continue forever. 
It is to be remarked that these beings of the 
third dimension take it quite as complacently 
for granted that they are the goal of the 
evolutionary process as do we of the tenth. 

You will begin to fear, dear, that the 
things that I am experiencing are unsettling 
my reason. Indeed, the predicament of this 
good folk is such as to drive one mad! So 
deep, however, is my sympathy for them, that 
I hope to come to such an understanding of 
reality as mathematical study alone could not 
have given me. Would that you were here 
with your wonderful insight into human na- 
ture to help me see aright, dear wife! But 
there is this to comfort us in our separation ; 
we shall have much to tell each other when 
once communication is established between 
us. This is about to take place, I believe. 

We little anticipated when I left you, love, 
that it would be so long before we could hear 
from each other. I should suffer much con- 
cern for your peace of mind if I did not know 
that your loyal heart would ever answer for 
my faithfulness. My difficulty has been to 

6 



r THE LETTEES 
L OF DIOCLES J 

find a truth sufficiently large to span the 
chasm between worlds, — a truth which would 
at once be one you could receive and recog- 
nize as coming from me. All the messages 
I have been able thus far to send have been 
of such a general nature that you could not 
divine their source, and so you have at- 
tributed them, as people are wont, to the 
spiritual revelation coming from sorrow. 
These great transitions from life to life are 
apparently designed to eliminate all that is 
extraneous to reality in our being. The prob- 
lem confronting the individual is to retain 
his hold on the personal. Souls that love 
each other should aspire to have eternal 
verities in common which will survive the 
waters of oblivion. 

We made a great mistake, Agnesi, that we 
did not seek during our life together to bring 
our thought-worlds more into congruence. 
You lived in your philosophy and poetry, and 
I in my mathematics, quite content that we 
had a mutual interest in things material. But 
for those who would come into touch with each 
other in the after-life, the course of being 
must be expressed in the same elements and 
governed by the same vital laws. We are 
given love for just this purpose ; to enable us 
to set up such equations together as will make 
certain our union in the hereafter. 



AS-IF 

In this message that I am now endeavor- 
ing to send yon, dear, I am hoping that there 
is sufficient of philosophical interest to take 
hold of yonr attention, and so much of mathe- 
matical that yon must know it as my personal 
message. So I wait with eagerness word 
of you, my heart's treasure. 

Your devoted husband 

Diocles. 

The instrument showed no indica- 
tions of a return message up to the 
time that this second outgoing one 
was recorded. c. b. 

Dearest Agnesi : 

Why is it that I do not hear from 
you? Can it be that you did not get my mes- 
sage? You seem very near, dear love, yet 
something keeps us apart. Ah, I know it is 
because you are seeking to find me in a higher 
degree of consciousness, not dreaming that 
my course should have suffered this regres- 
sion! But so it is. Just what values are to 
be derived from the law of my ego through 
such a deflection of its orbit, I cannot foresee ; 
that they are significant ones, I do not doubt. 
The mathematician must first place his prob- 
lem. The particular one in life-analysis now 
before me has, I take it, to do with the bear- 

8 



r THE LETTEKS "I 
L OF DIOCLES J 

ing of space-curvature upon the thought of 
a people. 

While the Mortals have no consciousness 
of a fourth dimension as such, there is a 
vague desire among them to be aware of an 
unknown something. They suffer a continual 
disquietude, never enjoying a minute's peace 
of mind, because of this apprehension of the 
unknown. In a pitiful effort to give form to 
an immediacy which they do not understand, 
they have gone so far as to externalize time, 
their most intimate possession. That state 
of consciousness which with us is purely sub- 
jective, they picture as spread out in linear 
space. Duration is transformed into a math- 
ematical succession of points, separated one 
from the next spatially. The past and the 
present being thus mutually exclusive, mem- 
ory fails to make of experience an organic 
whole wherein what-has-been may work 
through what-is to a greater truth. A Mortal 
remembers an evil only to .expiate it, a good 
but to mourn its loss. Between the past and 
the future the present falls to the ground. On 
the one side it is burdened with memories and 
impressions, on the other with hopes and 
anticipations. People here do not live; life 
is either behind or before them. You cannot 
conceive, dear, of the feverish unrest which 
prevails. Indeed, so great has this time-evil 



AS-IF 

become, that all sorts of mechanical devices, 
called variously telephones, automobiles, etc., 
are being invented for its annihilation. 

But of all the errors arising from the lack 
of orientation, I have yet to mention the one 
fraught with the most direful consequences. 
In fact, I am loth to do so, Agnesi, for fear it 
may give you some slight uneasiness; but 
knowing your mental poise, I proceed. Here, 
eternity is not a state of being, as you and I 
think, but an extension of time. Such dis- 
placement as I have recently experienced is 
denominated death. That word which with 
us means spiritually lost, they apply to the 
passing out from their empirical phase of 
existence. Conceive, if you can, dear, the 
sorrow that such a conception must carry 
with it! While some among them claim to 
believe that there is a beyond, where friends 
meet again, all grieve as if the separation 
were final. For this reason they call them- 
selves Mortals — a term denoting one who 
dies. It follows, of course, that our word 
Immortal, which we suppose to be merely a 
name, originally signified one who does not 
die. This is only one of many origins that 
I am unearthing in these spatial depths. In- 
deed, I find that much which we have consid- 
ered of a neurotic nature is but a reversion 

10 



r THE LETTERS 1 
L OF DIOCLES J 

to the thought-life of this earlier space-form 
through which we have doubtless evolved. 

You see, Agnesi, that there is a great deal 
for me to do here, not only for the enlighten- 
ment of the people, but in the way of inform- 
ing myself. I can teach them much, but — 
who can say?— they may teach me more. I 
must remember that it is ever a mistake for 
a person to presume that he has a mission; 
it blinds him to his own development, which 
is truly his first duty. The Mortals would be 
greatly shocked if they were to hear that; 
— why, I will tell you another time. 

May some word of the love and thought 
that this contains for her reach my other 

Sdf! DIOCLES. 

The instrument showed signs of 
a protracted disturbance, but the 
electrical oscillations were too 
faint for me to get the message. 

C. B. 

Dearest : 

You are sending me some message, 
I know, but it must be of a personal nature, 
for I do not get it. Never mind, dear one, 
your love reaches me even though your words 
do not. What need have we of words, any- 

11 



AS-IF 

way? Our souls know the same values and 
abide in the same eternal relations. Surely 
that thought must come to comfort you in this 
separation. Oh, that you could know it as 
coming from me ! But since it bears no indi- 
vidual mark, you will think it a mere phil- 
osophical truth, and there is little solace to 
be derived from abstractions. If I had only 
given some unique turn to that thought when 
I was with you, — put my stamp in some wise 
on it, — you would recognize it now as my 
special message. Oh, Agnesi, my love! We 
lived our mutual life too much on the surface 
of being. The little intimacies of daily liv- 
ing were so sweet that we forgot the greater 
things. We missed too the sorrow that might 
have caused us to sound the depths each of 
the other's soul; so that now, deprived of the 
measure of common living, we find it difficult 
to keep that close relation of the heart's ideal. 
It has just come to me that I have written 
you no word of my material well-being, and I 
know without being told that your wifely 
solicitude is questioning much concerning it. 
Forgive me, love, and I will hasten to make 
amends. I have established myself as a stu- 
dent at the leading University of the country. 
I reasoned that I should thus come into touch 
most directly with their best minds, but of 
this I am beginning to be doubtful. I am 

12 



r THE LETTEES "1 
L OP DIOCLES J 

giving my attention primarily to their 
presentation of mathematics and morality, — 
the mathematics, to the end of discovering 
the scope of their mental power and methods 
of thought; the morality, for ascertaining 
how far they have been able to make use of 
the truth they have in the adjusting of their 
human relations. 

I live very frugally in the outskirts of the 
college town. Do not remonstrate, dear wife. 
This is not a matter of choice, but of neces- 
sity, for the worth of a man has but little 
value here; his wealth is what counts, — not 
what he is, but what he has. This condition 
arises, of course, from the uncertainty of 
life. It is a matter of expediency for the 
creatures of this shifting world to husband 
their resources against a future need. The 
desire for accumulating which has thus been 
engendered has come to supersede all other 
interests, and has reduced all evaluation to 
a monetary basis. I can hardly expect you 
to follow this, so foreign is it to our concep- 
tions of the things that are worth while. But 
of all the evil to which it has led, it would 
take volumes to tell. A man. sells his labor, 
his thought, his very life, for money. He 
marries for it, and its disposal is his last will 
and testament. Such fools! What is it, 
dear? * * * 

13 



AS-IF 

You are right, — I should be more char- 
itable. Perhaps when they have gone their 
way through as many worlds as we, they too 
will have learned the wisdom of spiritual 
possessions. Indeed, so cramped are they 
by their space-form that it would seem the 
Mortals might welcome any blow, even death 
itself, that would free them from its matrix. 

Acting on the above hint, I have 
discovered, on inquiring at the 
University, an eccentric student, a 
Mr. P., who may possibly be the 
person sending the messages and 
calling himself Diodes. One 
would take this man to be a Rus- 
sian or a Hungarian of about 
forty. Because of his persistent 
allusions to another world, his fel- 
low students have nicknamed him 
that "Sky -gat from Mars." Mr. 
P. is a large man of distinguished 
appearance, notwithstanding his 
rusty black suit of foreign cut, 
and long black whiskers. He al- 
ways carries a great armful of 
books, and goes in haste as if 
intent upon some purpose of vital 
import. It is said by the students 
that his candle burns most of the 

14 



rTHE LETTEES 1 
OF DIOCLES J 

night. Although he is gentle and 
courteous in his bearing toward 
the professors, they snub him 
most cruelly. It is Mnted that 
they are unable to answer his 
questions or to follow his thought. 
Those in a position to know best, 
fear that Mr. P. nearly starves, as 
his only means of subsistence is a 
stipend which he receives as 
reader of mathematical papers. 
The fellow is doubtless half-crazed 
but one would never guess it to 
look into his clear blue eyes, which 
seem to gaze into one y s very soul. 
Of course, it is impossible for a 
scientific man like myself to be- 
lieve that this person is a being 
from another world with which he 
is still in communication, and yet 
— who knows? c. b. 

But I forget, dear, that I am telling you 
of myself. You will be surprised that such a 
well-balanced person, as you deem your hus- 
band, should be thought erratic, but I sus- 
pect that this is how I am regarded by my 
acquaintances of this world. I have heard 
them say, "Oh, a bright fellow, but a little 
queer"; and they tap their foreheads and 

15 



AS-IF 

add, "Not quite all here, don't you know." 
And no wonder, for I must appear of a some- 
what fragmentary nature, since only a small 
part of me can be visible to them at one time. 
Their space-form, you see, can no more com- 
pass a creature of my dimensional make-up 
than a plane can take in a sphere. The only 
unfortunate thing about this is that I shall 
find it more difficult to be of assistance. But 
they will trust me when they see that I under- 
stand them ; and in this I have, of course, the 
advantage of the intuition coming from a 
sense of higher dimensions. 

There is very little true friendship or 
sympathy here, for want of just that intuition 
and the insight that goes with it. Do you 
know, Agnesi, love, I sometimes wonder if 
most misunderstandings are not due to a dif- 
ference in spacing. Two persons could easily 
think that they were talking about the same 
configuration and have nothing but words in 
common. This might go undiscovered for a 
long time, yet some day there must come a 
radical variation, and through no fault of 
either, but simply because of unlike curva- 
ture. 

My one diversion — and I while away many 
a lonely hour thus — is reading the records 
left by others of our world who have so- 
journed here at one time or another. The 

16 



r THE LETTEES 1 
L OF DIOCLES J 

Mortals have these records collected and 
carefully catalogued in what they call li- 
braries. But while they are very willing, even 
eager, to give honor to these beings of larger 
vision than their own, there are many of them, 
I find, whom they have failed to recognize. 
This is not surprising, for so uncertain is 
their power of discernment when it comes to 
the question of a man's worth, that they find 
it safest to postpone judgment until he has 
passed on his way (that is, after what they 
call his death), in order to get a better per- 
spective. This visual difficulty is one hard 
for us to appreciate, since we consider a per- 
son's immediate associates the most favor- 
ably placed for seeing his points, good and 
bad. But to their credit, be it said, once as- 
sured of a man's superiority, they never cease 
to do homage to his memory. And so con- 
cerned are they to learn just what others 
have thought, that they forget to think for 
themselves. Herein, I suspect, lies the reason 
of their inability to get at the truth. 

Nor do they educate for power. A child 
is not trained to think for himself, but to re- 
produce the thoughts of others. In conse- 
quence, each generation makes very little 
advance upon the last preceding one. This, 
however, gives them no concern, for they 
honestly believe that the human mind is now 

17 



AS-IF 

at its highest point. I find both professors 
and students at the University reluctant to 
speak without authority; indeed, if you have 
the hardihood to do so, you are immediately 
asked to give references. Every document, 
to be accepted, must be accompanied with the 
proper bibliography. Thus do they strive in 
their thought-realm for the stability they 
miss in the material one. Education adds 
but to a man's acquisitions, not to his devel- 
opment. This being so, they have found it 
necessary to label their educated with certain 
insignia, called degrees, so that they may be 
distinguished from the uneducated. 

Yet for all their stupidity you would like 
these people, Agnesi, for they have a most 
delightful fun. For instance, they define ed- 
ucation as what is left after a person has for- 
gotten all he has learned, and character as a 
by-product of the process ! Given this divine 
sense of humor, the situation surely can be 
saved, and it is manifestly my work to put 
these half-seas-over creatures upon their 
legs. And no easy task is it going to be, I 
assure you. I thought at first that I had only 
to explain the matter clearly to the mathe- 
maticians and they would know how to make 
the corrections necessary to meet existing 
conditions. But when I so much as speak of 
a fourth dimension they look askance. 

18 



[THE LETTEES "1 
OF DIOCLES J 



"Why, yes, it is an element of abstract 
analysis, very interesting in a speculative 
way. ' ' 

To be sure, one of their philosophers did 
confide to me that he had questioned if there 
is not a growing physical perception of it, as 
evidenced by the standing of hair on end 
and the phenomenon of goose-flesh! 

All this sounds very strange to you, I 
know. But take into consideration, dear Ag- 
nesi, that the very space-form is prohibitive 
of clear thinking. Indeed, I fear that unless 
I hasten on, I too shall succumb to its lim- 
itations. Many an Immortal, I find, has lost 
his vision because of its restricted view. 
That I have retained mine thus long is ascrib- 
able, I suspect, to my looking skyward as 
frequently as I do. The Mortals wonder at 
this habit of mine, for they do not see you, 
my star that shines so true. * * * 
Strange, but Browning had the same exper- 
ience. By the way, I forgot to tell you, dear, 
that he and Elizabeth were here together for 
a time before entering our sphere. You re- 
member they always insisted they had known 
each other in some previous life, which certi- 
tude we set down to poetic sentiment. I must 
say, Eobert got at the mathematics of the 
situation pretty well — for a poet. He tells 
how, out of three sounds, not a fourth, but a 

19 



AS-IF 

star is created, and adds significantly that 
he knows not, save in this, such power be 
given to man. Wouldn't you have thought 
that hint enough to make them look beneath 
quality for a dimensional difference? But 
this obtuseness is a natural result of empha- 
sizing fact over method. 

Do you know, Agnesi, I am bothered about 
that eleventh dimension. May it not be at 
hand in some sense-perception which we are 
wont to regard as color, or harmony, per- 
chance f The thought troubles me. 

But to return to the Mortals : As a conse- 
quence of their lack of mental receptivity, 
conversation in any intellectual sense is 
utterly unknown among them. Each person 
talks apparently to hear himself, for no one 
listens to another. It may be because their 
knowledge is so hardly won that the Mortals 
hasten to erect walls about any truth they 
chance to discover. You will be talking to a 
man who gives every indication of having 
sensibility and mental power, when all at once 
you find yourself alone in your thought. He 
has struck a mental barrier. Nor is he willing 
that you should help- him surmount it, since 
he strangely considers his limitations funda- 
mental to his individuality. It is thus that 
the ego seeks to preserve its identity in this 
flux of things. Indeed, a broad understand- 

20 



CTHE LETTERS 1 
OF DIOCLES J 



ing is physically impossible; each individual 
clings in sheer desperation to his own special 
rock of knowledge, fearful of being swept 
away by the great tidal wave of uncertainty. 
But if I do not bring this letter to a close 
I shall have both you and myself likewise 
imperiled. So good-bye, sweetheart mine. 
Lovingly, 

Diocles. 

The vibrations were sufficiently 
distinct to make it evident that 
there was an answer, but still too 
faint for me to tell what. c. b. 

Dear Sweetheart: 

You are trying to reach me, but your 
words are lost in the void. I wonder if it 
would help you if I were to anticipate what 
you would say. It is all-important that the 
receiving instrument should be adjusted to 
the transmitting one. The overlooking of 
this scientific fact no doubt accounts for the 
little thought-connection existing even today 
between worlds. 

Now to your message. I wonder if I can 
get it — I was never so intuitive as you, my 
love. But going at it as a psychological 
study, I think my idealistic wife would ques- 
tion first of all: 

21 



AS-IF 

"How can a dimension unknown, and in 
an incipient stage at that, affect a mind that 
does not desire its existence ?" 

Come, didn't I guess aright! Now don't 
you hear me shout : 

1 l Can I never get you to see that the outer 
world conditions the inner one?" 

Let me think — what will you say now? 
Oh, yes, something of course about thought 
determining the form of experience. And I 
answer condescendingly from the heights of 
my superior masculine intellect: 

"Certainly, but the form only, for the 
mind must have material wherewith to work 
its creation, and this it perforce finds in sen- 
sation.' ' * * * 

Did you speak, Agnesi? I heard so 
clearly : 

"There is no sensation surely without 
perception." 

Yes, you said that — or was it my subcon- 
scious self? Well, let that be as it may, I will 
answer : 

"Very true, dear one, and for that reason 
the outer world does not wait until the inner 
one is ready to receive it, but bombards the 
mind until it gets the recognition that it must 
have to become reality. There is no doubt 
much in the sentient realm that knocks in vain 
at the door of thought for existence. For 
22 



[ 



THE LETTEES 
OF DIOCLES 



instance, out of the infinite number of rates 
of ether vibrations we perceive but the few 
that we interpret as light or heat or electric- 
ity, while all the others go unheeded, although 
doubtless as varied and as different as these. 
But mind, dear, this is not saying that they 
will never be perceived. Things jar and 
jangle on our nerves until they force their 
way into our system of being, and sooner or 
later we find it convenient to ascribe certain 
sensations to them, for it is only thus that 
we may free ourselves of their importunity.' ' 

Are you listening, Agnesi? I beg your 
pardon. I forgot that I was trying to get a 
message from you, not to send you 
one. * * * 

All is quiet. You have despaired of mak- 
ing me hear. Ay, surely it is a greater art 
to be able to hear the truth than to speak it, 
and that art I have not learned. 

But to the work ; in that only may I find 
relief from this terrible loneliness. 
With loving thought, 

Youe Husband. 

After a lapse of many days came 
this communication, - c. b. 

Deaeest Agnesi: 

So absorbed have I been in the cor- 
rections essential to my problem, that for the 
time being I forgot even you, my love. But I 

23 



AS-IF 

know you will forgive me as you used of old 
when I became thus obsessed. What a sweet, 
helpful companion you were, a constant 
source of inspiration ! Ah, dear one, it is for 
just the lack of that life-giving force that my 
thought is now barren of all results. 

It would seem an easy matter to bring 
about an adjustment between logic and space- 
perception. But not so in this case, for while 
the Mortals are getting where they might do 
some thinking, they are losing what promise 
they had for independent thought because of 
a compounding of consciousness. As I have 
told you, the oncoming of the fourth dimen- 
sion gives to their outer world a fearsome 
quality. This may be likened to the feeling of 
ominous expectancy presaging an earthquake. 
Not only the people, but the animals as well, 
dislike to be alone; in consequence the ten- 
dency towards gregariousness is becoming 
more and more powerful, and, leading as it 
does to a crowd mind, must inevitably retard 
the evolution of the individual mind. As 
evidence of this, the Mortals are rapidly com- 
ing to base their ethics upon the social im- 
pulse; and their religion glorifies it. 

Naturally, women, from their constitution, 
suffer more than men from the sense of im- 
pending danger, and for that reason are 
thought to be more spiritual. And because 
24 



[" THE LETTEES "1 
L OF DIOCLES J 

insight has not risen above the emotional, it 
follows, of course, that instinct is exalted 
above reason. All sorts of cults and beliefs 
have sprung up, embodying every possible 
inconsistency of thought. These are inter- 
woven with a strange, false morality, from 
which comes much suffering. 

Well, you may wonder what the fourth 
dimension has to do with this, but the explan- 
ation is simple. Since the intervening 
medium cannot be trusted to be true to its 
own order and sequences, it has been found 
necessary to introduce an arbitrary element 
of some sort. These elements are held sacred 
under the name of duties. So fearful are the 
Mortals of drifting with the tide of human 
nature, that they set themselves to row 
against its current, and hence never learn 
how far they might go if they were to row 
with it. Indeed, to get that against which he 
can measure his purpose, a Mortal makes at 
every turn a handicap of his own nature. 
One is reminded of children playing they are 
lame and blind, and making great heroism of 
the affliction. Moreover, with all material 
things in flux, it has beconie necessary to 
crystallize thought and institutions to get the 
necessary basis for action. So these are re- 
tained even though they may have become an 
evil. The segregation into groups according 

25 



AS-IF 

to kind has brought about much division, with 
its attendant animosity. Divers spirits 
struggle with one another for dominance. 
Individuals are the puppets of forces they 
know not. 

These people have, indeed, fallen upon evil 
days. And to think that all that is needed to 
right the wrongs of their world is a slight 
mathematical correction in their interpreta- 
tion of given elements! Pray, dear Agnesi, 
that I may discover the way to make it. 

For the time being, a fond adieu. 

Diocles. 

After a long wait came the follow- 
ing, c. B. 

Deaeest : 

The problem becomes more baffling 
as I study it. I fear that there is no help for 
these victims of their own thought. But 
wherefore this descent of mine into the abyss 
of being if it is not to show them the way 
hence? I must not falter; there is a solution 
surely. 

Agnesi, my loved one, how far away you 
are ! No, no, that is not so ; I am not thinking 
true. Your beautiful soul is always with me ; 
its radiance suffuses my whole existence. So 
much of you as was mine, is mine forever. 
How dark it is growing! I am losing my 
26 



[ 



THE LETTERS 
OF DIOCLES 



vision. Where are you, Agnesi, my star? I 
thought I saw you but now, and they tell me 
that what I saw was Saturn. 

How close it is ! My head is throbbing to 
burst. There is no room, — I cannot think. 
Oh, the problem, the problem! Can I never 
solve it? The walls of many dimensions are 
forming. The space is closing in on me as did 
those dungeons of old upon their miserable 
prisoners. Do you see that great black wall? 
I must be in the purgatory of ancient belief. 
Oh, my angel, save me, I implore you! 
# # # you are telling me, Agnesi, that 
this is a dream, a nightmare. No, no, it is the 
reality. 

The newspaper this morning tells 
a pitiful tale of a student who has 
become violently insane from over- 
study and deprivation. His de- 
lusion, it is said, is of a form quite 
unknown to alienists. The poor 
fellow imagines himself to have 
come from some other world of 
higher dimension. So violent is 
his malady that before he could be 
brought under restraint he had all 
but demolished the walls of his 
poor dwelling in his effort to es- 
cape the restrictions of their di- 
ll 



AS-IF 

mensions. The case is a warning, 
the writer adds, against the advis- 
ability of mathematical speculation 
beyond practical purposes. I 
have no doubt that Mr. P. is the 
student in question, although I 
have been unable to ascertain for a 
certainty. c. b. 

There was no distinct record 
for many days, although the in- 
strument showed a great perturba- 
tion due to etheric waves from 
without our sphere; then the fol- 
lowing was received. c. b. 

How beautiful your voice is, love ! I hear 
it so clearly, bidding me to think true! 
* * * There, I have passed the loop; 
my course is once more in the ascendant. I 
am about to enter the eleventh dimension. 
The meaning of this mortal agony of mine 
is now clear ; I came hither to learn the lesson 
I missed when I first passed over this part of 
my life's course; so that by thus experienc- 
ing the lower world, I might attain to a 
higher. 

Ah, Agnesi, we were more blind than these 
people of three dimensions, for greater is 
the outlook which we failed to use. The soul 
comes to its full expression through a series 

28 



r THE LETTEES "I 
L OF DIOCLES J 

of space-lives. As it climbs it throws off one 
after another of these empirical vestitures. 
The dislocation that the ego suffers with each 
transition is necessary for its adjustment to 
a new form. For the right understanding 
of it all, there must be a review from time 
to time. If it were not so, the sequence would 
lack co-ordination and unity. 

The struggle and turmoil of the Mortals 
has become invested with a profound mean- 
ing for me. The realm of externality is al- 
ways in the process of evolution, as is the 
internal world of one's conscious life. The 
development of the two are mutually de- 
pendent. The spiritual life is to be found 
through an ever-higher outreaching. The sin 
of sins is in assuming that one has reached 
the goal. That sin was mine, the sin of self- 
satisfaction. But my ignorance is now re- 
deemed; I go to a better world. There in 
good time I shall find you, my love. Until 
then, good-bye. 

Your triumphant 

Diocles. 

This ended the messages. The 
reader will form his ~own con- 
clusions, c. B. 



29 



J 



BOOK II 

THE JOURNAL OF AGNESI, 

WIFE OF DIOCLES; TELLING OF 

HER LIFE AFTER LEAVING THE 

WORLD OF TEN DIMENSIONS, 

AND HOW IT CHANCED 

THAT THIS JOURNAL 

APPEARS HERE 



BOOK I I 

A FTER the Great Interregnum.— How 
/^L long I was lost to myself or what 
/ ^ transpired in the meantime, I do 
JL. JL not know. When next I came to 
a consciousness of personal identity, I was 
like one suddenly aroused from a profound 
sleep. There was that same sense of de- 
tachment, with the effort to place oneself. 
This was followed by a feeling of great ex- 
hilaration, as if there were things to do and 
the power to do them. But who was I, and 
where? My consciousness was failing to tell 
me. In vain did I question my surroundings ; 
they were quite unfamiliar. I was in a room 
which somewhat resembled a museum with 
its clutter of objects in great variety. Before 
me on a table lay sheets of manuscript. The 
pen dropped carelessly to one side, and my 
posture went to indicate that I had been 
writing. I perceived all this, but not through 
my senses, for my physical self seemed to be 
a thing apart from me, or rather outside of 
me — a sort of watch-tower in which I sat in 
contemplation. Suddenly a voice cried: 

"Can I do it?" 

"Of course," I answered with great ear- 
nestness. Why I did so I do not know, unless 
in response to my own longing for achieve- 
ment. 

33 



AS-IF 



"Oh, if I could !" came the same voice, 
this time nearer, and a tremor of eager 
expectancy passed through me. Slowly it 
dawned on me that the woman sitting at the 
table was my outer self. As I came to this 
realization she arose and, snatching up the 
papers, cried: 

"How foolish! Whatever possessed 
me!" Addressing herself, "You write a 
novel, Mary James? What do you know of 
life and love?" Contemptuously, "Why, 
don't you know that you belong to the non- 
sexed class of women whose function it is to 
administer to the welfare of the socius? Go 
to your books; nothing but books for you, 
and the everlasting teaching. Life with its 
natural joys and sorrows you must exper- 
ience vicariously — a mere brick in the social 
structure." With much passion, "Oh, my 
colorless existence !" 

I tried to calm her, but in vain. She con- 
tinued ironically, "You are a very able 
woman, Miss James ; every one respects you 
and recognizes your ability. What more do 
you want? Besides, think of the good that 
you do ! ' ' 

With that she threw herself on the couch 
in a paroxysm of weeping. This gave me 
time to take in the situation. Here I was, 
apparently shut up within a strange woman 

34 



r THE JOUENAL 1 
L OF AGNESI J 

who was suffering some unusual emotion, 
possibly on account of my presence. Surely 
it must be a dream, Then came a horrible 
thought. Perhaps I was undergoing disin- 
tegration, and certain subconscious elements 
of my being were for the first time asserting 
themselves. At the best, I reflected, it must 
be a case of divided personality. How was I 
to unify my various selves 1 Thus I went on 
wondering vaguely. Then all in a moment 
I knew that I was being reincarnated, and 
this was the ordeal of trying on a new body. 
"What if it should be a misfit V 9 was my 
next concern. The body seemed to be having 
a hard time of it, and I felt queerish, to say 
the least. But I reasoned with myself that I 
had always been able somehow to make my 
clothes look as if they belonged to me, and 
surely I could adjust to my personality so 
intimate a thing as a body. 

My interest in Mary now took on a per- 
sonal quality. I began to cast about for her 
possibilities. She appeared to be a fine speci- 
men of womanhood, strong and efficient, and 
evidently well educated. I might have done 
worse. I would make of her the woman of 
my dreams. She would be my ideal realized. 
My soul should have its long-desired mani- 
festation. With this thought came the ex- 
planation of the sudden emotional storm that 

35 



AS-IF 

I had witnessed. I was the soul to the ex- 
istence of which she was just awakening and 
my coming was troubling the depths of her 
physical being. Then came a fear that if I 
did not act quickly she would perhaps fall 
into a sleep again from which I might never 
rouse her. The salvation of both of us, I 
felt, lay in our quick recognition of each 
other. 

1 ' Mary, ' ' I cried, ' ' I am your soul ! I have 
come to bring you a happier, richer life. ,, 

But she did not heed me. 

"Let me live in you," I implored, "and 
I will inspire you to great things. Together 
we shall work for a larger knowledge, a 
deeper experience." Thus did I plead, but 
she was deaf to my words. My agony be- 
came unbearable. I felt that I should soon be- 
come extinguished, like to a flame that is shut 
in from the air, if I could not get into touch 
with an outer world. I realized in that mo- 
ment how essential expression is to life — that 
we really live to the extent only that we are 
able to manifest ourselves. I looked about 
for some point of contact as a basis of appeal, 
but we two seemed to belong to utterly alien 
worlds. Finally my eye fell on the manu- 
script. I happened to remember the inborn 
love that all persons have for that. I whis- 
pered to her of it, breathing words of hope, 

36 



r THE JOURNAL 1 
L OF AGNESI J 

and after a time she stirred as if in response. 
While she did not speak, I somehow knew her 
thought. She questioned as of herself: 

"How can I write? I am not trained for 
it, nor have I genius." 

And I answered as to myself: 

"Mary, you have both intellect and soul. 
From the union of the two will come genius." 

When I had said this, I was moved as with 
a great purpose ; whereupon Mary sprang up, 
seized her pen and went to work. For some 
lines I followed her words mechanically, not 
getting their import; then in a flash came a 
recollection of our life, yours and mine, my 
beloved Diodes, in that world which was ours 
before you went away, dear husband, to your 
present star. There it was, all before me, 
— the memories of our beautiful companion- 
ship. Until that moment I had experienced 
no recollection of the past; but, as I read, 
how clearly did it all come back to me ! 

When I was told, dear one, that you were 
to leave me, my despair was unspeakable. 
I had somehow taken it for granted that 
when the time came we should go together; 
hence the shock was greater than I could well 
bear. In my rebellion I declared that I would 
go too; that I could not live without you. 
Our friends tried to make me see that life 
still held much for me; whereas your 

37 



ASIF 

progress, they said, required a larger unfold- 
ment, a new domain of experience. And I 
knew — what their kind hearts would not let 
them say — that I was not prepared to go, 
for my lessons were not done. You can not 
well conceive the state of remorse into which 
I was plunged. We were to be parted for all 
eternity because I had not kept pace with you. 
Not only had I failed in the best for myself, 
but I had failed in my duty to you, my hus- 
band. Oh, you can never know the bitter- 
ness of that thought to my soul! 

But suffering is illuminating. Through 
it I came by degrees to know that the object 
of life is growth, — not happiness, as I had 
supposed. Our love was remiss, Diodes. It 
should have visioned a greater perfection; 
instead, you were pleased with me just as I 
was, and I had no ideal beyond you. So I 
lived my life in yours, thinking only of your 
achievement, never dreaming of doing things 
myself. Although I studied, it was for the 
pleasure I got from the knowledge, not for 
the work to be done with it ; and there can be 
no growth aside from work, dear one. 

This sorrow had to come that I might learn 
that truth. While those were days of sad 
regret, they were days of great resolve also. 
It was then I determined to become a teacher 
of mathematics, that I might measure up to 

38 



[THE JOUENAL 1 
OF AGNESI J 

your thought. I hoped, by laboring unceas- 
ingly, to overtake you before you had passed 
through many worlds. But the lack of early 
training in the subject was not easily over- 
come. My advance seemed to me slow, al- 
though others called it phenomenal. As I 
studied, I imagined myself closer to you. My 
dreams assumed the form of communications 
from you about a strange, weird world that 
you had found. Finally, one day, I heard 
your voice calling to me for help. Then it 
was that I broke the bonds holding me and 
started into the great unknown in quest of 
you, my love. 

Shall I find you ? Ah, yes, surely ! As the 
magnet draws the iron, so will our need of 
each other bring us together. 

I look forward with a joy almost childish 
to this existence into which I am being born, 
as it were. Now I shall know what it is to 
do real work, — world's work, not the mere 
woman's work of simply making a happy 
home. Oh, my husband, how could I ever 
have been so blind as to think that life is 
made up of little things, when there are so 
many great things to be done! 

As yet I have not seen much of this — 
my new — world. Mary keeps me concealed 
in the innermost recesses of her being. Hav- 

39 



AS-IF 

ing created me, as she thinks, with her pen, 
it is quite natural that she should look upon 
me as a figment of her imagination, — and the 
imagination, it would seem, is tabooed in this 
intensely rationalistic world wherein I am 
come. 

I am able to reach the level of her con- 
sciousness only when she is writing, as now. 
But she seems fearful of yielding to even 
so innocent an impulse of her personality 
as this for expression, questioning if it is 
wise and practical to give way to it. I urge 
that only thus can she know what forces are 
hidden within her, and that unless she gives 
these inner elements an opportunity to come 
forth and compete for a place in conscious- 
ness, she may miss the richer part of her 
heritage. 

Mary's was a buoyant step because of my 
delight that first morning as I accompanied 
her to school. She wondered at herself that 
she felt such sudden exuberance of spirit. 
But so carefully did she keep me shut in 
that I could only divine the things taking 
place about me. As we passed over the ferry 
in the early morning hours, a great symphony 
of pipes and bugles burst forth, a prelude, I 
supposed, to the day's work. I noticed, how- 
ever, that Mary shuddered, and as we walked 
up the street I saw that this I had taken for 

40 






r THE JOURNAL "I 
L OF AGNESI J 

a pean of joy was the signal for the opening 
of some great prison house. There was much 
clanking of chains, and every person who 
passed seemed to be dragging a heavy weight 
after him. I questioned Mary about it, but 
she evidently did not understand what I was 
asking, for she muttered something about a 
big industrial system. 

My wonderment was to grow when we en- 
tered the schoolroom, for where I had ex- 
pected to see children was a great beast of 
indefinite outline and motley color resembling 
a dragon. I would have fled affrighted, but 
Mary, after a few words of exorcism, pro- 
ceeded in the most matter-of-fact way to drill 
the creature in the theorems of geometry! 
Over and over again the same phrases were 
mumbled in endless repetition by its many 
mouths. Greatly did I marvel at her pa- 
tience in endeavoring to mold this hetero- 
geneous organism into some coherency of 
thought and action. And what power the 
woman displayed; not only did she hold in 
subjection one eye, but a hundred eyes ! At 
times the creature seemed tractable and open 
to suggestion for noble purpose, but in a 
moment it became black and glowering if 
crossed in any way. While it was quick to 
see things and receive impressions, it could 
do little reasoning of itself. I learned later 

41 



AS-IF 

that its memory faculties were also very 



feeble, notwithstanding the unceasing drill. 

Finally a bell rang, and the dragon rose, 
swayed to and fro, — then rushed from the 
room with the sound of countless feet. I 
had just breathed a sigh of relief, when in 
came sprawling another beast like unto the 
first, and called Class B; and all day long 
did Mary train these monsters in mathe- 
matics, — for what purpose I have yet to 
learn. But I suspect it has something to 
do with duty. By the way, Diodes, Mary 
has the strangest vocabulary! It is made 
up of such words as duty, discipline, sup- 
press, restrain, conventional, customary, 
practicable, desirable, and many others of 
like kind — a vocabulary well designed to 
destroy personality. How is one to account, 
do you suppose, for such a strange method 
of self -delimitation? Surely no people can 
be so obtuse as not to have discovered the 
connection between language and mental de- 
velopment, and particularly this people who 
put such emphasis on casual relations. 

I realize that I have much to learn of 
Mary's world before I can understand Mary, 
for it is very difficult to say just where the 
boundary lies between the woman and her 
psychic milieu. She may very well think 
herself the resultant of forces determined by 

42 



r THE JOURNAL 1 
L OF AGNESI J 

heredity and environment. She is certainly 
bound hard and fast by a chain of necessity 
whose links grate most cruelly on the fiber 
of her real self. Life, as Mary lives it, is a 
purely practical one, devoid of all natural 
spontaneity and joy. Her thought does not 
come from the deeper centers of her being, 
but is superimposed on her from without. 
What wonder that I find it difficult to under- 
stand her ! And because of my failure to do 
so, she is lacking in emotion and in the insight 
that goes with it. Indeed, Diodes, I some- 
times fear that Mary is in her present state 
because I am not functioning as a soul ought. 
Perhaps I should have come earlier to her; 
or can it be that I was not prepared to become 
a soul? You know, dear one, I hastened my 
departure from that phase of self -manifesta- 
tion which you and I had in common. I truly 
believed at the time that my love for you was 
sufficient justification for thus taking, as 
Mary would express it, my own life, but it 
may be that I was forcing my development, 
and for that reason must abide a time in 
purgatory before finding a spiritual heaven. 

It is some days since the^ last was written, 
— Mary has been so occupied with her outer 
life that I have been unable to get her atten- 
tion. In its ceaseless activity there is no time 

43 






ASIF 

for communication with an inner self, how- 
ever pressing its needs. The monster-drill 
goes on each day with deadening regularity. 
My perplexity grows with my knowledge of it. 
It seems that these dragon-schools are in the 
service of a cult called Democracy, having for 
its principal tenet that all men should be 
created equal. Inasmuch as they are not, its 
propaganda is to make them so by the elimi- 
nation of such qualities as are not held in 
common. Now the best device that has been 
found for doing this effectively and without 
the entailing of too much suffering is the 
dragon-school. The process is one of gradual 
absorption, which renders abortive the ex- 
ceptional quality. So that, if a person has 
been properly schooled, he differs in no way 
from his fellows. To make certain of the 
process, it is desirable that a child should be 
placed in a class-dragon when as young as 
possible. It is not surprising that many peo- 
ple find themselves lost after leaving these 
school-dragons, and seek voluntarily to come 
under some other dragon. Fortunately there 
are many of these, variously denominated 
fraternal orders, clubs, societies, all effective 
in keeping down sprouting propensities. This 
is well, as they see it, although so opposed to 
our ideas of what makes for individualism, 
without which, as we think, there can be no 

44 



r THE JOUENAL "1 
L OF AGNESI J 

true socialization. But Democracy holds that 
stupidity is the best safeguard of a nation, 
since it preserves steadiness of conduct and 
consistency of opinion. As one writer puts 
it, "The surest guarantee that a person will 
do his duty is that he should not know any- 
thing else to do; that he should hold to his 
own view, is that he should not be able to 
comprehend the other man's." In such wise 
does Democracy purpose to form the bricks 
of the social structure that it would erect. 

But to return to the dragons. Because of 
their great service to the common weal, they 
are looked upon, as well-nigh sacred. The 
teachers serve in the capacity of vestal vir- 
gins, to keep alight the fires on their altars. 
I have learned that for this high office a young 
women is required to forego marriage and 
motherhood. Think of it ! But even so, there 
are more novitiates than the service demands. 

How very strange that my desire for a 
larger self-expression should have resulted in 
a mode of manifestation so utterly different 
from anything I had ever conceived! It is 
difficult for me to reconcile this with my 
philosophy that our thought determines the 
form of our particular, individual world. I 
have not forgotten, dear Diodes, that you 
always maintained that life is conditioned 
entirely by physical attractions and re- 

45 



ASIF 

pulsions. It would almost seem that you 
were right, but I do hate to think we are 
mere creatures of our environment. That is 
what Mary reasons she is, but I know that 
she is something more, inasmuch as my con- 
sciousness transcends hers. 



Shortly since, in the morning of a day that 
is here called the Sabbath, Mary said on ris- 
ing that she suspected, for the good of her 
soul, she had better go to church. While I 
did not understand the connection, I was 
pleased to receive thus much of recognition, 
and fell to wondering if there was a spot 
particularly designed for souls. If so, — oh, 
happy thought ! — perhaps I was about to find 
you, my beloved. Notwithstanding my eager- 
ness to set off, Mary spent several hours, 
quite oblivious of things spiritual, in dressing 
herself according to the dictates of Fashion, 
a dragon, it would appear, of universal sway, 
for his will is most assiduously studied by 
all, both young and old, great and otherwise. 
Indeed, no one dares to violate the slightest 
decree of this god, Fashion, whose every 
whim is law. 

I was concerned several times before the 
preparations were finished that we might not 
be able to go to the Place of Souls. The 
first time was when Mary discovered that 

46 



r THE JOURNAL ~] 
L OF AGNESI J 

her hat was not in season, as she phrased it, 
but happily she was able to save the situa- 
tion by bunching some artificial flowers in a 
peculiar way on one side. Then again I was 
filled with consternation when it was found 
that her gloves were not quite the correct 
shade, and other things which I shall not 
trouble to mention. At last we were safely, 
though tardily, on our way to the church, 
toward which many others, no doubt belated 
for similar reasons, were hastening. 

I looked anxiously for another soul, but 
failed to see one. Most of the people we 
met seemed sad and weary, and at first I 
could not imagine them possessed of souls. 
I bethought myself soon, however, that Mary 
looked the same, although I was glowing and 
passionate within her. Then I divined a 
beautiful, flaming spirit back of each hungry 
face. But my joy thereat was quickly turned 
to awe, for as we entered the sacred precinct 
I felt the enveloping presence of a dragon 
more fearsome than any, I had previously 
beheld. The worship was of the nature of 
an appeasement to this powerful deity who 
holds all in thrall. Try as I might, however, 
I could feel no sense of communication with 
a Supreme Spirit. While my passive attitude 
seemed to trouble Mary, it was only in an 
intellectual way. There are certain states of 

47 



AS-IF 

emotion, it seems, that one should experience 
at given times, and this was one of the occa- 
sions ; so she knew something was wrong, but 
just what, she could not tell, unless it was 
that she was losing her faith. I was sorry 
to give her so much uneasiness, but I could 
not feign a state which I did not feel. 

It is manifest that these people do not 
find satisfaction in their practical life ; hence 
they seek to create for themselves a higher 
one, but this as a separate thing and not 
in self-realization. In their desire to attain 
something better, they have lost the value 
of what is in their possession. Indeed, so 
eager have they been to create beyond them- 
selves, that they have not thought to see that 
what they create is good; as a result, their 
world has become ruled by demons as well as 
by gods. Through a process of selection one 
of the latter has come in the course of time 
to be considered absolute. Their religion 
deals with their relation to this God, which 
is of their own creating, though they know 
it not. Worship is propitiatory in form, and 
is in no sense an identification with a higher 
being. Their morality, as you will infer, is 
largely negative — a resignation to a destiny 
that they consider inevitable. From this con- 
fusion of purposes has arisen the need of 

48 



f THE JOURNAL 1 
L OF AGNESI J 



social workers, and the great responsibility 
for the general welfare that devolves upon 
the teachers. 

This has been what is known as examina- 
tion week at school, and a very trying one 
for all concerned. At such times the children 
are taken out of the class compound and ex- 
amined individually to make certain that they 
are being properly molded into the standard 
form. If any are found to exceed the limits 
of mediocrity, the teacher is taken severely 
to task, for it is manifest that she is failing 
in the duties of her sacred office. The un- 
fortunate child who shows indications of ex- 
ceptional characteristics is given over at once 
to a more strenuous dragon and the pressure 
increased to guarantee the removal of the 
offending part. Such unfortunate children 
are called geniuses. They usually die young 
because of the extreme treatment to which 
the good of the state requires that they be 
subjected. 

There were several of Mary's pupils who 
failed to keep within the average. These were 
the ones I had found most interesting, but, I 
will grant, the most difficult to manage; so 
perhaps the system of suppression is justi- 
fied. Mary has been very unhappy over the 

49 



Q to 



AS-IF 

report she had to make of her failure 
the Head-trainer, whose censure she fears 
greatly. 

The people here are possessed of a cer- 
tain strange temerity. They delight to walk 
on the edge of things, notwithstanding that 
some one is always tumbling over and becom- 
ing lost to his world. I can get no explana- 
tion for such foolhardiness, unless it arises 
from an innate desire to figure at least once 
before their fellows in a unique manner, even 
at the cost of life itself. It is as if the ego 
makes this one final effort to regain for him- 
self the sense of individuality that is being 
insidiously sapped out of him by the dragons. 

Another peril, which constantly confronts 
the ego in this sense-jungle, is a sort of pit- 
fall known among the learned as categories. 
These abound on every hand. No person is 
proof against their danger; in truth, there 
is scarcely any action possible to an indi- 
vidual which may not throw him into a cate- 
gory of greater or less self-effacement. You 
go out with a very personal desire, — for in- 
stance, that of helping a particular person in 
a particular way, — and before you realize it 
you are plunged into the great Category of 
the Philanthropist, and from that time on you 
are benevolent of necessity, not of choice. 

50 



r THE JOURNAL "I 
L OF AGNESI J 

And so it is with everything you do. These 
manholes are, I am beginning to suspect, the 
breeding places of the dragons which dom- 
inate the land. 

When Mary wants to make sure that a 
certain act is good, she proceeds to compute 
the effect upon humanity if all people were 
to perform it. Of course nothing of any 
magnitude can undergo such a process of 
multiplication as that without exceeding all 
reason and desirability. Now I maintain that 
a thing may be good because of its very 
uniqueness. But she argues that what is 
right for one is right for all; that if you 
want a certain privilege you should be willing 
to grant the same to others. I am unable to 
make her see that the probability of others 
not wanting it may make it your duty to 
take it. There is no form of activity that 
would not suffer a similar fate if exposed to 
unlimited number. Fortunately there is no 
privilege desired alike by all men except 
that of expressing each his personality, — and 
this is its own guarantee for individual 
variation. 

But Mary's mathematics has to do entirely 
with summations. It is always the mass and 
not the unit that is under consideration in 
this world of brute force. I am inclined to 
believe that therein lies the error in its form 

51 



AS-IF 

of life. Might it not be that in their eager- 
ness for a larger outreach, these people have 
exceeded their capacity? They do all things 
in the large. It is always many books, many 
friends, long journeys, large houses, much 
wealth. The prevalent desire is for expan- 
sion. The current of being is entirely cen- 
trifugal. It is not strange that they do not 
find their souls; it would be strange if they 
did. 

Oh, Diodes, my love, all of this troubles 
me much! I know well that I could not so 
readily discover the fault in Mary if I had 
not likewise failed. I fear that, after all, 
this mode of manifestation is of my own cre- 
ating. I desired a larger life, all regardless 
of my qualifications for it. I see now that 
we must live up to what we have before we 
can come into greater possessions in any true 
sense. It is the friends whom we have time 
for, the books that we read, the houses that 
we imbue with our personality, that are really 
ours. Ah, it is writ large for me in the 
macrocosm of Mary's empirical life what in 
the microcosm of my own I did not descry! 

Long days have passed. The walls of 
my prison-house press upon me. Mary, in 
order to escape from my subtle demands, has 
plunged into a restless mania of work. 

52 



r THE JOURNAL 1 
L OF AGNESI J 

While I fain would think that I am becom- 
ing, to some extent, the formative principle 
behind her thought and action, she still ac- 
cords me no recognition. The sad thing 
about it all is that Mary longs for the larger 
life that I could so easily give her if she 
would let me. But she thinks that such a 
life is to be found only in self-abnegation and 
service, poor girl! 

Although these people put great emphasis 
on the giving of self, — in fact, it is the key- 
note of their religion, — it never occurs to 
them to question what sort of a self they 
have to give. Now, I take it that a god is to 
be known by the worship he evokes. If I 
remember rightly, even the most primitive 
folk in our history saw to it that the offerings 
which they placed on their altars were with- 
out spot or blemish. I cannot make out 
whether this dereliction on the part of the 
Demos comes from egotism or the lack of 
a sense of personal worth. Perhaps, though, 
these are one and the same, for when I stop 
to recall, the greatest persons among us were 
always the most humble. Contradictory as 
it would seem to what I have told you of 
them, these are a very egoistic people. They 
appear to be ever on the defensive concerning 
their rights as individuals. Seeking as they 

53 



AS-IF 

do their selfhood in an external world, they 
have not learned that its realization lies 
within themselves ; so it may well be that the 
question of personal worth as a moral obli- 
gation has never occurred to them, and per- 
haps their gods are better pleased to have 
it so. 

So you see, Diodes, that it is a very poor 
place for souls, — this world that your com- 
rade has come upon. My one prayer is that 
I may be able to get out of this experience 
all that it holds for me — that is not what I 
mean; I would say, to put into it all that it 
will contain. I am not going to acknowledge 
— that is, not just yet — that you are right in 
placing matter before spirit. Die I may, but 
I will die hard. 

I grant you this is a pretty bad muddle of 
a world I am in; nevertheless I am willing 
to take the responsibility of its creation — 
yes, a thousand times, rather than think that 
I am the buffet of unknown forces or the 
plaything of blind chance. 

The mistaken abnegation on the part of 
the womanhood of this sense-plane is, after 
all, only a projection on a larger life-screen 
of the self-sacrifice that the women of our 
sphere were wont to make for their families. 
In either case it is service apart from its 
meaning for self -development. When woman 

54 



r THE JOURNAL "1 
L OF AGNESI J 

learns that her first duty is to make the most 
of herself, her soul will not be as a light 
hidden under a bushel. There is no develop- 
ment apart from service, but service there is, 
and much of it, that does not make for de- 
velopment. In the degree that Mary is be- 
coming her ideal of a good teacher, she is 
losing her potentiality for growth. But all 
this had to be that I might see and know and 
understand. 

Oh, Diodes, would that I could find you, 
my love ! But I have little hope now of doing 
so, for I have made every appeal possible 
to Mary, without avail. She will not give 
me expression. Can it be that you are like- 
wise striving somewhere to cross the chasm 
between spirit and matter? Perhaps you are 
close at hand and I cannot see you, and you 
would never discover in the cold implacable 
Mary your gentle loving Agnesi. How little 
did we dream, in those golden days that were, 
of what was to be! If I could only have 
known then that my yearnings were to have 
form, I should have made ready to create 
thus beyond myself. We seek anxiously to 
realize our purposes; rather should we seek 
to know them. All of this confusion of ex- 
ternality is due, I believe, to the failure of 
thought to unify itself. We are lost in the 

55 






A S • I F 

conflict of our desires. Because of the undue 
emphasis that I placed on intellectual values, 
I have become embedded in this process — 
ignored in the mad rushing to and fro of a 
merely human culture, a culture without love 
and without life. 



I have fancied several times of late that 
I have caught a glimpse of a soul in some 
eye, — this when I have given a kindly intona- 
tion to Mary's voice or prompted her to some 
little tenderness. I believe the children are 
possessed of souls when very young, but the 
prison-house soon closes in. Indeed, if you 
were to know their dragon-system of instruc- 
tion, you would not expect any spiritual life 
to survive long. Analysis is their watchword, 
and very advisedly, I am coming to see, for 
if the people were once to discover that the 
way of progress is through mental synthesis, 
the dragons would not long hold sway over 
them. But these dragons are subtle crea- 
tures; not only do they conceal the secret 
of their strength, but themselves, and so well 
do they do this that most persons disclaim 
their existence even, maintaining that such 
terms as crowd-mind and mob-spirit are 
merely figurative. 

Apparently the dragons hypnotize the 
people into thinking themselves free by much 

56 



r THE JOURNAL "1 
L OF AGNESI J 

repetition of the word Democratic, for it is 
to be noted that where the dragons are most 
dominant that word recnrs frequently. All 
this, yon will understand, Diodes, is but con- 
jecture on my part, for — as I most painfully 
realize — I am in no position to discover the 
truth. 

But to return to the children. As I was 
remarking, they are taught to subject all 
things to analysis; it signifies not, flower or 
poem — the masterpiece alike of God and 
man — is torn asunder in their quest for fact. 
And it is after this manner that they pursue, 
to the end of their days, the phantom of 
reality, never guessing that what truth they 
would have is theirs for the creating. 

That the Demos are so under the tyranny 
of these dragon entities is ascribable, I verily 
believe, to just this, — that in its functioning 
their thought is destructive rather than con- 
structive; for analysis is to spiritual life 
what the knife is to protoplasm. 

Oh, Diodes, can it be that I am too critical 
of Mary? As I wrote the above it flashed over 
me that it might be so. She is as one dead; 
perhaps I have killed her. My attitude to- 
ward her has been an analytical one, I know. 
I thought that was necessary in order to make 
her over to my liking. But what right have 
I to use her for my self-realization? This 

57 



AS-IF 

objective life belongs surely to her; I have 
had mine, and a joyous one it was too. As 
her soul, it is my province to inspire her in 
what she would do, not to dictate to her. Per- 
haps when I have learned to be a true soul 
to Mary, she will give embodiment to the 
best that is in me. 

Hitherto, Diodes, I have thought only of 
finding you, my ideal. In consequence Mary 
has been the creature of impulses that she 
could not understand. Henceforth I shall 
seek the ideal within myself regardless of 
whether I ever discover you. That doesn't 
mean that I shall not be glad to find you, my 
love, but it is my duty to find myself first. 
Oh, how like the Demos I have been! They 
are truly my own people ! 



Since the examinations the Herr-Professor 
has come in often to see that Mary is allowing 
no more individualism to get beyond control. 
I dislike the man exceedingly, he is so inscrut- 
able. They say, though, that he is very 
learned, which means of course that he has 
passed successively through the whole series 
of dragons. How his soul must have suffered 
in the process ! I wonder if it is quite dead 
— he seems very cold. Poor Mary, to be sub- 
jected to this inquisition — as if it were not 

58 



r THE JOURNAL 1 
L OF AGNESI J 

torture sufficient to teach dragons without 
being under criticism while doing it! 

Oh, Diodes, I have something so good 
to tell you! Since my resolve Mary has 
changed greatly. Today a friend said to her : 

"What has come over you, Mary?" 

She answered, "Why, I seem to be find- 
ing myself!" 

The friend replied laughingly, "Has it 
taken you all these years?" 

And Mary said, "Yes; I feel as if my 
soul had come to me." 

Imagine, if you can, what contrition was 
mine on hearing that! 

The best of it all is that she now desires 
solitude, whereas formerly she needed com- 
panionship. This rejoices me greatly, for 
only through isolation may we come to find 
our selfhood. And we do have such good 
times, Diodes ; even better, dear, than I ever 
had with you! This won't hurt you, I trust, 
since it should be so, for you know she is my 
very own self, and much as I love you, sweet- 
heart, you are another self. 

There is one thing, however, that is giv- 
ing me much concern. My ^presence in Mary 
is having a deleterious effect, I fear, on the 
discipline of the children, for it seems to 
call out what of individualism in them that 

59 






AS-IF 

has not been smothered. It is as if their 
little souls leaped forth to meet me, and I 
am coming to love some of them. I long 
to take the bright ones away from the dragon 
and teach them alone, but of course that 
would never do. The Herr-Professor would 
censure Mary greatly were he to find it out 
— and I suppose it would be undemocratic. 
I must, however, give the man credit for 
one bit of humanity. Today Mary's strength 
failed her while he was in the room. Where- 
upon the dragon became quite obstreperous, 
so that he took it in hand. But after he had 
got it quelled, instead of rebuking Mary he 
said, "It is a lively one!" This seemed to 
solace Mary for the humiliation she had suf- 
fered, and I was so glad for her that when 
he bade her good-night, I added, without 
Mary being conscious of it, a tiny squeeze 
of gratitude to their formal hand- shake. I 
was scared the moment I had done so, for 
he looked questioningly into her eyes, as if 
he were in search of me, and — would you 
believe it ! — I thought I caught a momentary 
glimpse of a soul behind his veiled glance. 
But that must have been due to my excite- 
ment, for a dragon-master can hardly pos- 
sess a soul. 



60 






[THE JOURNAL "1 
OF AGNESI J 

Since the above happened Mary has de- 
cided to take up her writing seriously, with 
the view of giving it to the world. I am 
greatly rejoiced, for this journal may then 
fall into your hands, my Diodes. 

"We are much by ourselves now. When 
people jest Mary about it — that she must be 
in love — she answers that she is inviting her 
soul, and then how happy I am! I tell her 
of the many truths that have been passed 
down from soul to soul in our line, and she is 
doing her best to make me understand what 
riches she would add to the heritage of our 
common womanhood. Thus do the past and 
the future commune together to the end that 
the subconscious and the conscious within us 
may be one for the making of a more nearly 
perfect woman in that greater life which shall 
be ours when she, in her turn, becomes a soul. 

After a long period of joyful work. Yes- 
terday the Herr-Professor told Mary that 
she put a great deal of soul into her teaching. 
How I trembled when I heard that! But I 
wasn't going to have Mary" suffer on my ac- 
count; so I stammered out that it was all 
my fault. Before I could go further, dear 
Mary, to save me, told him that it was due 

61 









AS-IF 

to her effort to write fiction, and then she 
went on to tell him of the journal as if it 
were simply a story that she was creating. 
To my surprise, he laughed and chuckled 
over the dragons (he apparently thinks there 
are none), and said very many compliment- 
ary things — how delightful he found her, and 
so forth. Of course I hid myself so as not 
to get her into any more trouble, for it is 
not likely that she would get out of it so 
easily another time. Then, too, I don't like 
to hear her speak of me as if I were an im- 
aginary being. I know that it is very easy 
to get thus to regarding things spiritual; 
moreover, words have such potency that there 
is a certain amount of danger in giving ex- 
pression to any untruth. Don't think, dear, 
that I am criticizing Mary. What she said 
was in all loyalty to me, and, considering 
the man, the only explanation possible. Of 
course, you will understand, Diodes, that he 
used the word soul to mean vivacity, enthus- 
iasm, life — what you please. The Demos 
have all the words that we have, but many 
of them have lost the spirit that gave them 
meaning. 



62 



tTHE JOUKNAL 1 
OF AGNESI J 

MARY WRITES THE REST 

A few days after I had told Professor 
Passihof of my literary attempts, he called 
and said: 

"I have something to show you, Miss 
James — one confession deserves another. I 
also have tried my hand at fiction- writing — 
this when I was in college and lonely, being 
a stranger in a strange land." 

And then he produced the letters of 
Diodes to Agnesi, with which this book 
opens. Now I had not mentioned the names 
of my characters to him. Imagine, then, my 
amazement when I saw them in his story! 
Indeed, I was struck dumb; but my dear 
Agnesi, either forgetting or else not knowing 
the proprieties, cried with great joy: 

"Oh, my Diodes, my other Self, at last 
I have found you, my love!" 

And before I could realize what had hap- 
pened, the Professor had me in his arms, and 
was saying over and over again: 

"My loved one, my darling Agnesi, for 
whom I have looked so long." 

What could I do? Fiction-writing has 
certainly been my undoing. - But it is all very 
beautiful. Mr. Passihof is sure that we have 
always belonged to each other, and it does 
seem as if it were so. 

63 



AS-IF 

The walls of his self-constraint are fall- 
ing away, revealing a spirit that I little 
dreamed lay hidden under his stern exterior, 
and my Soul is so happy that she sings all 
day long. 

Diodes is certain that he has found the 
eleventh dimension, and Agnesi is quite con- 
tent to abide with him in it, knowing that 
there is no more joyous life than that of a 
true companionship. 

Who can say what of this is truth, and 
what fiction? 









,. 



64 



HERE ENDS AS IF— A PHILOSOPHI- 
CAL PHANTASY— BY CORA LENORE 
WILLIAMS. PUBLISHED BY PAUL EL- 
DER AND COMPANY AT SAN FRAN- 
CISCO AND PRINTED AT THEIR TO- 
MOYE PRESS UNDER THE DIRECTION 
OF JOHN SWART, IN THE MONTH OF 
JULY, NINETEEN HUNDRED 
AND FOURTEEN 



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